Warm Hearted Shenanigans
by A Scarlet Rebel
Summary: "I hate you!" "Oh yeah? Well, I hate you too!" The thing is... Jerome didn't mean it. He didn't hate Mara at all. And what was Jerome's way of showing her? By constant teasing and mockery, of course!
1. Fakes I Love You's

**Author's Note: ****Sorry if the quotes aren't exact! And I'm sorry that most of the first chapter is a recap of the episode. :P But trust me, it'll get better. x)**  
**This takes place during** **House of Cheats/House of Rumors.**

**This is the first Jerome/Mara story! :D  
**

Chapter 1:

Fake "I Love You's"

"Alright, everyone," Mr. Winkler said, urging the students to stop talking and pick a partner. "Partner up."

Jerome walked lazily towards the closest person to him, rolling his eyes. This was probably just another pointless drama assignment...

His mood changed suddenly as he smirked at Mara knowingly when he passed her, folding his arms and standing next to her.

Mara rolled her eyes at him, shifting from foot-to-foot. What would Jerome do now that he knew her secret: that she had helped Mick cheat on a test? Whatever it was, she had a feeling she was about to find out.

"I love you," Mr. Winkler said, taking everyone by surprise. "See? It's not what you say, it's how you say it." Mr. Winkler cleared his throat and continued with his explanation. "Now, I want you to have a conversation with your partner using only those three words: I love you."

Mara's eyes widened after Mr. Winkler was done explaining the assignment, afraid to look at Jerome's expression.

Jerome smirked and chuckled, stepping in front of Mara so that his gaze was inevitable. She took a step back, so that his stare wasn't as penetrating and intimidating.

"Not so fast, Cinderella," he said with a smirk, unfolding a small piece of paper that he held in his hand. "Here's your _small_ list of chores."

Mara's face fell as she reached out to take the list from Jerome. She knew that repaying Jerome for keeping her secret wasn't going to be the easiest thing she'd ever done.

"Well," he continued with a chuckle, "it's not so small now, is it?"

She sneered at him and snatched the list from his grasp.

"I love you!" Jerome said sweetly, smiling at her almost teasingly.

"I _love_ you," Mara spat at Jerome, her voice full of malice and venom as she shoved the list in her pocket.

"Great job, Jerome, Mara," Mr. Winkler said as he passed them. "You can almost _sense_ the hate."

After Mr. Winkler walked away, Jerome gave Mara one last "innocent" smile. Mara narrowed her eyes and smiled back sarcastically as they were released from their drama class.

Mara took a deep breath, her shoulders falling as she reached for her bag and left the drama room.

Jerome continued to smirk as he went back to his desk to gather his belongings, smiling at her retreating figure. _Mara, Mara, Mara, _he thought, shaking his head.

"You ready for Biology?" Alfie asked, walking next to Jerome as they exited the room.

"Is there ever really a right answer to that question?" he said with a sigh, walking towards his locker.


	2. Teasing

**Author's Note: Here's the second chapter to make up for the fact that the first chapter is mostly a recap of the episode. :P Enjoy!**

Chapter 2:

Teasing

As soon as Jerome walked into Biology, he spotted the teacher writing on the chalkboard, _"Pop Quiz Today."_

He groaned inwardly, dragging his feet as he walked. He sauntered over to the desks in the room when he saw Mara, sitting alone at a table_._ Jerome smirked to himself, walking over to the table where she sat.

"Why hello there," he said cheerily, his voice dripping with sarcasm and mimicry, as he set down his things.

Mara looked up and sighed in frustration, then replied as calmly as possible, "Hi, Jerome. What do you want?"

Jerome pretended to look offended. "Now Mara, why would you be under the impression that I sat by you just because I wanted something?"

She rolled her eyes. "Okay fine... then why did you sit by me?"

"It's simple," he began, folding his hand together in a very business-like manner, "To remind you- where's the list I gave you?"

Mara dug into her pocket and took out this list, a confused look draping her face. "Here, why?"

Jerome quickly whipped out a pencil and began to unfold the paper, explaining, "I forgot to put one _small_ chore on this list."

Mara closed her eyes and sighed, trying to keep her cool. "And just _what_ did you forget to put on that list? You've already got me doing the dishes for you, and not to mention clean your dormitory-!"

"I know, I know," he said, finishing writing and refolding the list and handing it back to Mara without another word.

Mara sneered at him and opened the list, reading what he had added. "Wait... you want me to do what?"

Jerome merely smiled and put his hands behind his neck, leaning back in his chair. "Last I checked, you can read, Mara."

"But I can't do your laundry _and_ Alfie's!" she said, feeling completely defeated.

"No arguments, Mara dear," he said, grinning maliciously. "You have to do everything that's on that list, or else _someone_ is going to find out about what you did in French class..."

"Come on, Jerome!" she pleaded. "I'm already doing all of your chores, now you want me to clean your clothes, and Alfie's dirty socks!"

"Well maybe you'll be a little more sneaky next time you cheat," he said, taking out his notebook to write down the homework assignment for the day.

Mara sighed and put the list away, doing the same, as the teacher explained their classwork assignments.

"Alright class, today, as you can see, we have a Pop Quiz! Don't bother taking out your notes to study, I'm handing out the quizzes as we speak."

Mara nodded after the teacher was done talking, clearing her desk to take the quiz. As soon as they were handed the quiz, they both got to work.

When the teacher stepped out of the room, Jerome grinned.

"Pssst, Mara!" he whispered about halfway through the quiz. "Mara!"

She gritted her teeth and ignored him, continuing to write nonchalantly.

"Pssst! Hey, Mara!" he said, now tapping his pencil lightly on the table to get her attention.

Instead of getting annoyed or even acknowledging his existence, Mara merely took a deep breath and kept writing.

That is, until Jerome decided to poke and pinch her.

"Mara... Hey, Mara?" he said, clearly enjoying messing with her.

She whipped her head in his direction. "What is it?" she said huffily, clenching her fists.

"What's the answer to number six?"

Mara gave him a confused look. "What?"

Jerome smirked and continued, "You know... I know that you're good at helping others cheat, so-"

"Oh shut up, Jerome," Mara said with a scowl, turning back to her own quiz.

"_Well_," he said, "someone can't take a joke."

Mara took another deep breath and turned towards him again, unable to hold in her frustration any longer.

"Yes, Jerome, I can take a joke," she whispered, her voice filled with anger. "But that wasn't funny at all, so can you-"

"Miss Jaffray, what are you doing?"

Mara looked up quickly and made eye contact with their teacher, who had just walked through the door.

"Oh, I was-"

"You know there's no talking during tests and quizzes," she scolded, shaking her head.

Mara looked down and blushed a deep shade of red, everyone's eyes suddenly on her. Jerome chuckled to himself and returned his eyes to his own quiz.

"I'm sorry," Mara said, staring at her hands.

"Now get back to your quiz before I change my mind and put in an F for your quiz grade."

As soon as their teacher had strolled back to her own test and sat down, Jerome began to scribble on a sheet of paper, which he then passed to Mara.

Mara gave him a suspicious look, but opened the sheet of paper, which read:

_Wow, you're not a sneaky cheater at all, are you?_

She rolled her eyes after she read it, looked to see if the teacher was watching, then wrote an answer, refusing to let Jerome make a fool out of her and get the last word.

_I wasn't cheating, fat head. Shut up and stop passing notes, you're going to get me into more trouble._

Jerome smiled after reading Mara's response, and even though she didn't want an answer from him, he wrote one anyways.

_I love you too, dear! Hey, what's the answer to number eleven?_

Mara scowled at his note and crumpled it up, shoving it in her bag. As she continued her quiz, she could hear Jerome, chuckling next to her._  
_


	3. J is for Jerk

**Author's Note: I'm glad you guys are liking it so far, and I have so many more ideas that I want to turn into chapters, so there's a lot more to come! I'm sorry if this chapter seems to skip around a lot, I needed to set it up for the next one. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this. :)  
**

Chapter 3:

J is for Jerk

Mara stormed into her and Patrica's room after Biology class and threw her books on her bed without a word to her roommate.

Patrica just stared at her as she put her school things away and quickly changed out of her uniform, mumbling things like, "Stupid, bloody, annoying jerk... Such an idiot..."

"You okay?" Patrica asked, sitting on her bed with her laptop in front of her.

Mara released a groan of frustration. "I'm fine, what gives you the impression that something is wrong?" she said, slamming her drawers shut after she was done changing.

Patrica rolled her eyes and responded, "Gee, I don't know. Maybe because you're mumbling to yourself and raging around the room like a lunatic."

"What are you talking about?" Mara said, then continued walking around grumbled, "That low, slimy, dirty, no good-"

"There you go again, mumbling," Patrica said, crossing her arms determinedly. "Come on, what's wrong, Mara?"

"Nothing's wrong!" Mara insisted.

"Alright, fine," Patrica said, still a little suspicious. "Where are you going?"

"Just headed to take care of some afternoon chores," she explained with a sigh. "Better get started before dinner, or I'll never finish," she added to the side.

Patrica gave her a strange look. "I thought last night was your night to do chores," she said, "How many left over chores could you possibly have today?"

"Just a few," Mara said shyly, shrugging her shoulders. "But, don't worry... I'll be done before dinner... _hopefully."_

Before Patrica could argue any more, or question why Mara was doing chores on someone else's chore day, Mara quickly walked towards the door.

"Well, I'll see you later, Patrica," she said, opening the door and walking out. "Bye!"

"Bye, I guess," Patrica called after her as she closed the door.

Mara heaved a sigh of relief, glad to be out of the room. Patrica was her friend, but she was always a bit over suspicious. Well, she had reason to be suspicious, but Mara didn't want her to find out that she was doing Jerome's chores, much less the reason why.

She made her way down the corridors and the stairs, walking to the house kitchen.

As soon as she arrived there, she set to work on some of Jerome's chores, scrubbing at dirty pots and washing dishes. And to think... that was only a small portion of all of the chores she had to do.

Mara felt helpless inside, but refused to let it show. She wasn't going to let Jerome get the best of her, not even if he made her clean Alfie's laundry.

When she heard footsteps headed towards the kitchen, she quickly masked her emotions with a neutral face and kept cleaning the mountain-load of kitchen utensils.

Mara looked over to see Alfie walk in, who then began searching through the cabinets for some food.

"Hey Mara," he greeted, then looked around the kitchen as if surveying it from a general point of view. "Do you happen to know where the apples are?"

"Sure," she said, then took her hands out of the dishwater and took off the cleaning gloves she had been wearing. She walked over a cabinet and opened it, pulling out a bowl full of apples.

"Help yourself," she said, then, remembering that Alfie had quite the appetite, added cautiously, "but remember, that's just an expression... only take one."

"Great! Thanks Mara," Alfie said gratefully, taking an apple.

"No problem," she said with a smile, putting the apples back where she had found them and heading back to the sink.

"Oh, hi Amber," Alfie said nervously, walking out of the kitchen.

Mara smiled. Alfie had had the biggest crush on Amber since they were thirteen, and she could tell. Actually, everyone could tell. Everyone except Amber, that is.

"Hello, Alfie," she said, walking past him and towards the sink. "Mara, where are the clean dishes?"

Mara groaned. _Great, more dishes to clean_, she thought. But instead of saying that out loud, she replied, "Over there," pointing as she put on her gloves again.

"Alright, thank you," she said cheerily, walking over to where the dishes were kept.

After Amber had gotten a clean cup and poured herself a glass of water, she walked over to where Mara stood in front of the sink, hard at work... again.

"So, what's up, Mara? Anything interesting?" she asked, taking a sip of her water.

"Oh, just relaxing in the kitchen," Mara replied sarcastically. "What's it look like I'm doing?"

"Right, sorry," she said, setting down her cup. "Wait, I thought you washed the dishes last night..."

"Yes, I know, I'm doing dishes on an irregular night. Nothing to fret about, really."

Before Amber could even open her mouth to respond, Alfie came back into the kitchen, this time followed by Jerome.

"Good evening, ladies," Jerome said smoothly.

Mara rolled her eyes and let the neutral face she had had on consume her expression once more. As Jerome stepped up to the sink where she stood, washing and scrubbing, Mara refused to even glance at him.

"Excuse me, Mara," he said, dunking a load of plates into the dirty dish water that already had some dishes in it, causing a splash of water to soak Mara.

"Jerome! What are you doing?" Mara exclaimed, her cool facade melting away.

"Trudy told me to put these dirty dishes in the sink, so I did," he said innocently.

"But-"

"What? Did I do something wrong?" Jerome asked, almost daring her to oppose him in front of Alfie and Amber.

"No, I'll just clean that up," she said through clenched teeth.

"Good. Well, I guess I'll be on my way," Jerome said in triumph. He gave Mara a wink, then turned around and walked out of the kitchen with Alfie following behind.

In a way, Mara was almost mad at Alfie and Amber. If they hadn't been in the kitchen, there would've been nothing stopping her from punching Jerome square in the nose. But, she didn't want anyone else to get involved in the matter, so she sighed and angrily went back to work.

"What was that about?" Amber asked, utterly confused.

"Nothing, really," she replied.

Amber set her cup down and said, "Mara, I know when something is nothing. And that wasn't a nothing, that was a something."

Mara looked up from the plates she had been washing to stare at Amber. "Wait, what?"

"Bottom line is, something was going on between you and Jerome," she explained, crossing her arms stubbornly. "Now... what was it?"

"I promise nothing was going on just then, Amber," Mara said, nodding. "Except Jerome being his usual self."

Amber's face scrunched up in confusion. "What do you mean by 'his usual self'?"

"You know," Mara began, "stubborn, stupid, idiotic, irrational... a jerk."

With every word that she used to describe him, she scrubbed the plate she was washing harder and harder until she was afraid she would break the glass.

"Alright, if you say there was nothing going on, I guess you're right," Amber said, still not fully convinced.

Something _was _going on, and she was going to find out what that was.


End file.
